He served. If Manuel Artime was the only member of the Frente with whom Hunt could feel some philosophical kinship, Howard worked nonetheless to hold the Frente together. Watching him operate, I came to understand that politics was not ideology, but property. The Frente was in Hunt’s portfolio and that, as I was soon to discover, was of determining significance. I was soon to discover that Howard had not only learned to bear up with Toto Barbaro, but was ready to protect him. Be it said, I had not needed my father’s prod to keep Chevi Fuertes working on Barbaro’s bank accounts, and he was producing results. Chevi had succeeded in tracking large movements of money through Barbaro’s separate checking accounts, and Cal’s instinct was confirmed—the trail of deposits and withdrawals began to point to the Miami lottery whose winning number was pegged on the circulation figures of the Cuban peso. One rumor prevalent in the exile community was that these figures were rigged by Havana so that Trafficante could be given the winning numbers in advance, and a portion of his profits even went to paying off the operations of the DGI in Florida. If this rumor was valid, then Trafficante was not only the Agency’s most important asset in the proposed assassination of Fidel Castro, but might be Castro’s most important agent in America, and Toto, in his turn, could be serving as Trafficante’s paymaster to the DGI in Miami. The more he kept screaming for money to liberate Cuba, the more he was working for Castro.
Armed by what seemed better than half a case, I spoke to Cal via secure phone. He promptly returned me to Hunt. “I could come in from above,” said Cal, “but I won’t. Not this shot. Howard has been holding an impossible situation together, and I won’t smash into it. Bring your findings to him.”
Hunt, to my surprise, showed little response. He would, he said, peruse the summaries of cash flow in Barbaro’s accounts. When I did not hear any more after a few days and I pressed him, he was noncommittal. “I don’t know that we have enough to hang the guy,” he said at last.
“Does Bernie Barker agree with you? He said Toto was a shit.”
“There’s a measurable distinction between a shit and a double agent.”
Fuertes was not surprised at Hunt’s lack of reaction. “The next act is commencing,” was his conclusion. “To avoid any imputation that the exiles who replace Castro are related to Batista, your new President Kennedy is going to insist that new leftist groups be taken in. It is a comedy. Barbaro, a wholly corrupt politician, once represented some species of left-wing camouflage for your Frente. But now that Kennedy is bringing in serious figures like Manuel Ray who is far to the left of Barbaro, Toto has become the new center. You do not remove the center of a coalition. Without Barbaro, do you think Manuel Artime would be able to speak to Manuel Ray? No, Toto is crucial. He can hold hands with Manuel of the left and carry messages to Manuel of the right.”
“But what if Barbaro is working for Castro?” I asked.
“Toto,” said Fuertes, “would not know how to function if he did not have a finger in every hole. Of course, his fingers are filthy, but Toto sees nothing but visions.” Fuertes looked at me then with something close to intense dislike, and added, “It is a common feeling in our work.”
I considered writing an anonymous letter to Mario García Kohly exposing Barbaro as a Castro agent. I soon heard, however, via Fuertes again, that Trafficante, ringmaster of every intrigue, was also in close contact with Kohly. How, then, could Kohly and Masferrer decide whether to eliminate Toto or do business with him? Profiteers, murderers, patriots, turncoats, informers, drug dealers, and double agents all swam in the same soup, and I became depressed once more over my competence to deal with such people.
Now came word from TRAX that there was open dissension in the Brigade. Pepe San Román, the commander, had graduated from Cuba’s military academy while the country was under Batista, and then served with distinction in the United States Army. That, probably, was why Quarters Eye had selected him. Men who had carried arms for Batista were, however, hardly going to be trusted by men who had fought with Castro in the Sierra Maestra, and neither group was congenial to the younger troops. Given these factions, there had been a strike in the Brigade; training had ceased; Pepe San Román had resigned. He could not lead men into battle, he said, who did not trust him. He was, however, reinstated by the American officer who was on liaison to the Brigade. The striking troops now threatened to mutiny. Before training could recommence, sixty men were dismissed. The other malcontents would only agree to go back to duty if Faustino Barbaro were allowed to visit the camp. I was beginning to see why my father did not rush to get rid of Toto.
The long-standing request of the Frente to be given a trip to TRAX was finally accepted, therefore, by Quarters Eye. Artime would fly over with Barbaro, Hunt would accompany them, and I was dispatched as well, “on orders,” said Hunt, “issued by HALIFAX.”
“Well,” I said to Howard, “a little ability and a lot of nepotism do go a long way.”
I think he liked the remark. I was frankly excited. Nepotism be damned. This was the first serious excursion I had gone on for the Agency, and it came at a good time, for it underlined the virtues of living without a woman. If I had still been seeing Modene, my false explanations would have elicited her distrust. Now I did not have to suffer being in a place where I would not be able to phone her. I could pack a bag, buy mosquito repellent, pick up a pair of jungle boots, and be off.
37
GUATEMALA
TRAX, FEB 17, 1961
HALIFAX EYES ONLY Tomorrow, at dawn, the mail plane goes out from Retalhuleu, twenty-five kilometers from here, and the pouch, one is assured, will reach Quarters Eye within forty-eight hours. I, however, feel one whole planet removed from the States. TRAX (which, somewhat more affectionately, is called Vaquero by the Cubans) has been bulldozed out of the jungle and rests on volcanic soil, making up one hell of a dark gumbo in the ever-present rain. The Cuban swamps cannot prove more uncomfortable. I will not go on any more about the jungle surrounding us in these mountains except to say that it is not New England in the fall.
We left Opa-Locka on a C-46 cargo carrier. A black flight. I know you’ve been on more than a few, but it was my first experience of taking off without wing lights or, more important, runway lights, and at the risk of imposing on your patience, I will state that I felt as if I were in the belly of the whale. The plane was chock-full of supplies, and Hunt, Artime, Barbaro, and myself, wrapped in blankets against the high-altitude cold of our large compartment void of heat, had to sleep on top of cartons and between heavy gear. Coffee and sandwiches, courtesy of the pilot and copilot, were fed back from time to time.
Even in the dead of night, Barbaro was ready to harangue us. I have seen the man in various stages of anxiety, but never more intense than over the last few days. Sometimes I think that sustained argument, like those nitroglycerine pills he takes, is but one more form of release for his constricted arteries. All night, he kept exclaiming that the troubles at TRAX had ensued because of the previous lack of an invitation for him to visit Guatemala, and now it was his mission to rid TRAX of its Batisteros.
While it was certainly not agreeable to listen to Toto saw away on his obsessions—“Give me the money and I will conquer Cuba”—Hunt’s gifts as a horseman showed up well. He just rode the old nag out, occasionally interjecting enough argument to enable Barbaro to assume he possessed our attention. I tried to sleep, but I was furious. It took the sum of my respect for you and Hunt not to shout, “You old fraud. You pimp for Trafficante.”
We came into Guatemala City with the dawn, and after breakfast, transferred our stuff onto an Aero Commander, the President of Guatemala’s own private plane, indeed.
I saw the country then. We flew astonishingly close to the jungle as we crossed between great extinct, ash-haunted cones of huge volcanoes. Your travel guide will submit that he never saw foliage so quintessentially emerald as in the unholy green light that came up from the jungle below, and the landing on a mean slash of dirt strip carved into the flank
of a mountain would have been a stunt man’s delight. We sashayed to a stop ten feet from the jungle wall. I had no fear. I am Cal Hubbard’s son.
This place is so remote that I do not know how any word ever gets out. On the Jeep ride up to Vaquero, several thousand feet of climb were involved, and we hair-pinned it over many a mud track no wider in many places than the vehicle, and had the leisure to peer over vertical drops all the abject distance down to the airstrip. One begins to think of an honorable, if highly covert, Agency funeral.
As I learned over the next couple of days, you must build a camp before you train anyone, and the first members of the Brigade and their cadre had worked as carpenters and road builders, drained swamps, poured cement, and put up an electric plant while chopping down untold new acres. Naturally, the flora and fauna reacted with outrage. There were hosts of poisonous snakes uncovered, and scorpions galore. No one in the field dared to go to sleep without turning their sleeping bags inside out. Ticks were large enough to be mistaken for acorns. When Cubans complain of the onslaught of insect life, you know that you are visiting hell on stilts.
Fortunately, our accommodations are in the main house of the coffee plantation which serves as base for TRAX and is relatively civilized. We sleep in a tin-roofed, gabled structure with a porch around all four sides. My cot has mosquito netting, and through the windows are to be seen the bountiful acres of our host, Roberto Alejo. His coffee shrubs—I do not know whether to call them small trees or bushes—stand out in close checkerboard formation over cleared hills and dales. On our other side is level terrain offering a parade ground, barracks, mess halls, and a flagpole carrying the white star of the Cuban flag on a red, white, and blue field.
Be certain that as soon as we had washed and come back to the living room, Toto began to denounce Pepe San Román and Tony Oliva for their leadership of the Brigade. They immediately quit the room. They are obviously not men to be trifled with. I, like you, I presume, have a set of mixed feelings about military people, but these two gentlemen prove impressive. San Román is slim, lithe, mean-faced, and absolutely consecrated. No excess weight. I think it would never occur to him that he would not die for the cause if that was required. Humorless and full of Cuban honor—which seems to come in even larger sizes than they fit you for in Spain. Oliva, who is a Negro, fought for Castro, then parted company with him. Struck me as more complex than San Román, but equally dedicated, and if anything, tougher. A lot to take in, you may say, in one quick look, but I assure you, we were all of us sufficiently fired up to decide a good deal about each other over a handshake. In any event, the abrupt departure of San Román and Oliva kicked off a quarrel between Hunt and our American commandant here, one Colonel Frank, a beefed-up bull of a Marine Corps officer who won his medals at Iwo Jima and looks capable of lifting the rear end of a Jeep out of the mud. He may, however, be fatally remiss in the top drawer. Recently, he sent twelve Brigade “malcontents” up a tropical river in canoes to a wholly inaccessible place called a “reindoctrination camp,” and seems oblivious of the trouble that has caused to the other Brigade members’ national pride. They naturally wish to discipline their own people rather than have Americans do it for them. Colonel Frank then took Howard and me off to the side and proceeded to berate us. “What were you meat-heads thinking of when you brought Barbaro here? If you don’t get the son of a bitch out of TRAX, my Brigade will blow up.”
Howard held his ground. It wasn’t automatic. Howard would be no physical match for Colonel Frank, and say what you will, that is always a factor.
“I’ll handle Toto Barbaro,” said Howard (in what under the circumstances, was a viable voice), “if you quiet down San Román and Oliva.”
Well, they got into one hell of a staring contest before Frank said, “Take care of your end,” and stomped off.
Later in the day, Barbaro did remain civil when he spoke to the troops, but he also said that it would be neither honest nor responsible to pretend that he had not come with a most serious message: The Frente was the future government of Cuba, no matter what others (he made a point of staring at Artime) might have told those assembled soldiers. So the Brigade should not take any major decision without referring it first to the Frente.
The men were at parade rest—I counted over six hundred. Perhaps a third cheered for Barbaro, a third issued Cuban cat-calls (which run the gamut from mouth blats to simulations of parrots, roosters, and wild beasts). Most disquieting in terms of morale was a middle group who stood more or less mute but looked not at all pleased.
I got an inkling then of what Hunt can be capable of. Standing next to me, looking pale as icy resolve itself, he said, “I vow to silence that son of a bitch.”
Afterward, at the main house, San Román issued an ultimatum. If Barbaro did not support him openly in front of the troops, he would resign.
“Toto,” said Howard, “come with me to my room. I have a few things I wish to speak to you about.”
What ensued has been called “The Miracle of La Helvetia.” When they came down, Howard was still pale and certainly resolute; Barbaro seemed half-broken. He spoke to all of us, San Román, Oliva, Alejos, Artime, Colonel Frank, Howard, and myself long enough to say that he was now convinced he must make a good and careful study of conditions here at Vaquero before determining his own political certainties. This afternoon and tomorrow morning he would study maneuvers in the field.
There seemed a curious finality to his remarks, as if he had already decided on what he was going to say tomorrow to the troops. Howard hinted to us that he had told Toto to be ready to be flown back to Miami on the next plane as a mental case if he did not cooperate, but such a story hardly holds up. The Frente would have been torn apart by such a move. Deny it if you will, but I believe I now know why neither you nor Howard would react to my findings on Trafficante’s rigged lottery and Barbaro’s connection to it. There’s no sense in playing your trump card until the game is there to be won! I feel as if I have learned something invaluable.
The rest of the afternoon proved interesting. We were able to watch the troops’ impressive competence in small arms fire, heavy and light machine guns, and the mortar and artillery range. I couldn’t stop looking at Barbaro. He was exhibiting peculiar merriment. For instance, he was full of manic excitement when invited to fire the 50mm machine guns, and couldn’t stop laughing after his gun jammed. He kept hefting all the equipment to see how heavy it was, tried on one man’s helmet, slung a rifle, threw a couple of defused grenades for practice, and then a live one on the range, only to complain happily that he had thrown out his arm. I realized after a while that he was acting like a man who is enjoying his retirement. All the while, Howard kept nodding his approval and taking photographs of the leaders, the troops, the terrain, accompanied by the Hunt pipe and a most photographer-like smile.
Next morning, the Brigade was addressed by Artime and Barbaro. Artime has a cosmically poetic style that can prove downright embarrassing to our northern ear. He treats each large sentimental notion as if it were his dancing partner. “It is the will of the heavens that we are gathered here, far from home . . .. It is God’s desire that we sweat and live in fear, and overcome such fear, and thrive in brotherhood until we bring the flag of our Brigade back to Cuba, back to Havana, back to a land where Cubans may love each other again.” Verbs like vencer, triunfar, and imperar predominate. “We will win, we will triumph, we will prevail. We cannot fail in this war against the steel-tipped hearts of the Communists, but even if we are all massacred on the beachhead”—at which point an astounding sound came up from the Brigade, full of fiber at the thought of losing their young lives, yet an ecstatic cry, as if there had been some glimpse of heaven in the fall to the ground—“even if all of us are lost, none of us are lost. For the Americans are behind us, and they are a proud nation and will never accept defeat, and they will be there after us in wave after wave.”
Wave after wave of impassioned applause washed back to him. Artime is the most curi
ous leader. He is the spirit of charisma when he speaks; when he is done, he is just like one more guy with nice manners. Two personalities, for sure, and the younger one is very young, and not nearly so sure of himself. It comes out when he is forced to offer up a piece of prime bullshit as when introducing Barbaro in flattering terms, “a man without whom Cuban history would not be the same over the last twenty years.” Before Toto had said a word, the troops must have sensed that some kind of fix was in, for they catcalled as much as they applauded, and the moment Barbaro began to tell them of the high opinion he was taking back to Miami of the Brigade, an opinion, he declared, that would enable the exile community of Miami to feel proud of their heroes, Toto was met by a mixture of applause and derision. Now it was as if all the men who had been for him yesterday were against him, whereas all of San Román and Tony Oliva’s supporters overrode the booing with ovations.
Toto ended with a paean to discipline, to sacrifice, to the expectation of triumph: “Legend awaits the heroic actions of this Brigade.” Do you know, I felt wistful. Oratory is such a rich comfort if you can just let yourself get into it. We will certainly leave TRAX tomorrow under a general impression, now shared by San Román, Artime, Alejos, and even Colonel Frank, that our trip has been a success.
I think it was. For me it was. On this, our last night, I visited the barracks and had the opportunity to talk, to listen, and to come away with the impression that these men are emotionally ready to give their lives. I would say they even have religious dedication to their ideals. I can hardly communicate the kind of intensity that comes over conversation as they speak of their willingness to give, as they put it, “todos”—yes, all things. I was not unmoved. I hope this has given some picture of the situation at TRAX.
ROBERT CHARLES
The message I really wished to send would have been more extravagant. On the last night, closeted with the Cubans I had recruited, I was quietly overcome by their readiness to die. Sitting among them, I felt a sense of holy, even chilly exaltation, as if one could hear in these mountains and valleys, a muted refrain of cymbals clashing and voices singing, and felt close to Cal, because I knew, although I could hardly say how, that these were the sounds heard by men dedicated to war. That night, falling asleep to the sound of jungle downpour, I wondered whether the Crusaders and the conquistadors of Cortez had also heard that faint, beautiful, and sinister echo. Were the Australians going up over the trenches at Gallipoli aware of such music, and the Red Army marching into battle against the Whites? Did the Whites hear the same siren on the rock as they battled with the Reds? Certainly my father had heard these strains parachuting down into a strange land.
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